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City opts out of offering transit to casino

Cold Lake First Nations (CLFN) has asked the city to give them a lift. CLFN has put in a request with Cold Lake to extend their transit services to the Primco Dene commercial development on 8 Ave., and the casino located outside of town.
Residents will soon have better access to Cold Lake Transit thanks to government funding.
The city discussed CLFN’s request to expand their transit service.

Cold Lake First Nations (CLFN) has asked the city to give them a lift.

CLFN has put in a request with Cold Lake to extend their transit services to the Primco Dene commercial development on 8 Ave., and the casino located outside of town.

“(The casino) is quite far away; a 7.5-kilometre distance is quite considerable. In the eyes of administration, that would have to be its own separate line, or another bus would have to come online in order to accommodate that. If you add it to one of the already existing bus lines, they would simply get too long to go all the way around the system and it would become less desirable to go on the transit system and wait that long,” stated CAO Kevin Nagoya.

He noted at the city's corporate priorities meeting on Tuesday, May 21, that in order to expand their transit services to the casino, “it really comes down to a more complex transit system."

For the 8 Ave. stop, city administration highlighted some options.

The first is to re-route the north bus. Rather than take 16 Ave. east, it would travel along Hwy. 28.  This would increase the travel distance by one-kilometre, and add potential wait time at the traffic lights on the Hwy. 28 and Hwy. 55 intersection.

It also adds another stop to the route, and has the bus crossing four lanes on the highway.

The bright side, Nagoya said, is the Cold Lake Travel Centre, which is located in the business part, has also asked the city consider the location for a future stop.

Option two, which adds two-kilometres to the route, has the bus looping back to 8 Ave., before heading to Creekside.

"We would have to test that if that's something council would like to see," noted Nagoya.

Removing the Creekside stop altogether and re-routing the bus south on English Bay Road to a new stop on 8 Ave. was the third suggestion.

"(Creekside) does get utilized, maybe less so than some of the other ones, but there is some utilization there," Nagoya explained.

The final option doesn't re-route the transit system in any way. Instead, it would see the city improve the level of service for those walking to various areas in Cold Lake.

There are numerous areas within the city that don't have transit service, Nagoya said.

"Most communities don't have full coverage either. They have gaps in the system. To get 100 per cent coverage on every single roadway in the community, you could spend an endless amount of effort... It comes to a point of costs and being able to deliver that program," he continued.

Nagoya explained how even high-traffic areas, such as the north business district, don't have full coverage for transit services, and have an approximate distance to a bus stop roughly 700-metres away.

While most of their locations are within a 400-metre radius, there are other spots such as Horseshoe Bay Estates, Red Fox Estates, the Lakewood Lake-area, and residential areas on 4 Wing that have a walking distance of 2,000-metres or more.

"I would argue there are people who are further away from work than these guys are that are getting off of the bus and having to walk... We have entire neighbourhoods that have to walk that far," Coun. Chris Vining noted. "You're getting into providing pretty door-to-door service for a new client on their request, where's the next business going to go because they too want that door-to-door service because the bus stop is just too far."

Coun. Bob Buckle shared his views on the opportunity, and said while he can understand supplying the service, the city had been looking on ways to cut back on transit costs, this will just add to it.

It's estimated that the price tag to add a third bus to their transit services, would cost $90 to $130 per hour.

Buckle said he would prefer if these asks were made during budget deliberations.

"I'm not necessarily saying no to a changed route, I just think the process ought to be it comes before budget time and there's some actual discussion with a business plan," he continued. "What do we do if six months or four months from now someone else comes forward and says they want a stop somewhere else? It should be done at the beginning of our budget season. That's the appropriate time to be considering these things."

Coun. Jurgen Grau added, "There's really no indication of what anticipated ridership is going to be. Administration work hard to meet the goals that we set and I think we should stick with those."

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